5 Questions for the Fact-Checkers on Romney and Bain

[SunsetDreams]

Media fact-checkers continue to take issue with the Obama campaign's claims that Mitt Romney was responsible for Bain Capital's outsourcing of American jobs, even though journalists (including Mother Jones' David Corn, Talking Points Memo's Josh Marshall, the Boston Globe, Huffington Post, and others) continue to uncover more information about Romney's role at Bain between 1999 and 2002. Here are five questions for Annenberg's FactCheck.org and the Washington Post's Fact Checker that may help sort things out:

1. Is it possible that even without day-to-day managerial control, Mitt Romney may bear some moral or personal responsibility for the actions of Bain Capital post-1999, given that no one is disputing that he benefited financially from its actions and that his name was on the door? Is that question even fact-checkable?

2. Much of the debate over when Romney left Bain has been driven by the Obama campaign's claims that Bain invested in outsourcing US jobs while he was there. Factcheckers have said it's unfair to tie Romney to outsourcing during the 1999-2002 period. How should voters account for the fact that, as Corn reported, Bain invested in Global-Tech Appliances, a Chinese company that depended on outsourcing, prior to February 1999?

3. Even if the Obama campaign made inflated claims about Romney's post-1999 role at Bain, are Bain and Romney's categorical denials that Romney was not "involved in the operations of any Bain Capital Entity in any way" and Romney "has had absolutely no involvement with the management or investment activities of the firm or with any of its portfolio companies since the day of his departure" justifiable? What is the definition of "operations" and "management activities?" Does it include signing documents? Are companies that Bain part-owned "Bain Capital Entities?" Are companies like LifeLike, whose board meetings Romney says he attended, Bain "portfolio companies?" If not, what is a "portfolio company?" Does serving as CEO/president/chairman of the Bain board count as a "management activity?" If not, why not?

More at link: http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2012/07/5-questions-fact-checkers-romney-and-bain


The Media and Self-proclaimed "fact-checkers" need to start doing your job! You should be investigating this properly and thoroughly.

You should not just let this rest because the candidate who has a proven history of LYING, FLIP FLOPPING on important issues, says so. That is ludicrous! His credibility has been thrown out the window time and time again. If you don't investigate this properly, you come off as looking like Political HACKS!

COME ON this isn't some Third World country where we are told what to think and when to think it. NOTHING TO SEE HERE...just move along folks. This man is running for President of the United States for goodness sake! The public has a right to know who the candidates are, it is your job to do the investigating. Let's not have a repeat of Richard M. Nixon who because of improper investigating by the Media, had to resign from the Presidency of the United States 2 years later.

[marsis]

1. The Media and Self-proclaimed "fact-checkers" need to start doing your job!

Good luck with that! Maybe when pigs fly.